Jeff Poor

On “Face the Nation” Sunday on CBS, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum explained that his view of the Trayvon Martin shooting differed significantly from the one held by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich was critical of President Barack Obama’s reaction, but Santorum placed the blame on accused shooter George Zimmerman’s mental state.

“Well, you know, obviously, I’m not privy to what’s going on in someone’s mind,” Santorum said. “Obviously, in my opinion, someone … has a very sick mind who would pursue someone like this. This is clearly a heinous act. You know, there are a lot of people who have a lot of distorted views of reality. It’s a tragic, tragic case.”

“And my heart goes out to the parents, too. I can’t imagine what they’re suffering, losing their son in such a horrific way. All I would say is that, whatever the motive is, it was a malicious one, and a very, very tragic one.”

Santorum suggested the politics weren’t as important as the need to “be supportive” of Martin’s family in the wake of his tragic death.

“All I can say is that, again, there are a lot of people who have very perverted views of reality and obviously have, as we see, people who do horrible things for seemingly senseless reasons,” Santorum said.

“I think it’s hard to generalize from one heinous act something that is, you know, try to make a bigger point out of it. I think that’s probably what Newt was getting at. I would just say to the president and to everybody that, you know, we need to focus on being there to be supportive and, for the family that is going through this tragedy.”